1. Field of the Invention
This disclosure relates to color matching and such as has been previously done through the use of standard color chips or fan decks. Specifically the invention involves the electronic capturing, cataloging, transporting, transmitting, and displaying of accurate colors to facilitate architectural and interior design and reproduction.
2. Description of Related Art
Paint companies and companies that specialize in color technology are the dominant source of standard color chips or fan decks. To date this is the state-of-the-art in the industry for capturing, cataloging, and disseminating color information. Interior designers, painters and architects all rely on these color chips or fan decks, which are generally used to match paint colors and to facilitate color coordination and balancing. Fan decks are printed numbered color palettes that are bound together. Examples of such systems and devices are shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,104,809 entitled “Color Sample Display Device” issued to Frederick Day et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,743,407 entitled “Color Reference System For Decorators” issued to Martha Williams, and U.S. Pat. No. 6,665,965 entitled “Ergonomic Color Sample Fan Deck” issued to Mario Turchi et al.
Currently it is difficult for a professional to attempt to capture, catalog or convey color objectively. Current technologies fail to come up with a concise solution that can remove inaccuracies in color matching and color balancing.
What remains is no real ability to go out and capture color at the local level and accurately convey the exact appearance of the color to others or reproduce the exact color for use for design purposes. Unless a chip is taken off a wall or there is an exact match found from a limited palette of colors in a fan deck, the likelihood is there will need to be some compromises. In either case the problem only gets worse when it is required to convey an accurate representation of specific colors, to various professionals in a community or around the world. In order to further illustrate the problems involved, the following scenario often occurs:
An interior decorator goes to a client's house to document a project. Documentation consists of all the design particulars the interior decorator client has put forth and most importantly current existing colors as well as new colors to be used. One issue of great importance to the interior decorator client is color capture. In dealing with the interior decorator's client's multi-million-dollar home one of the most desired abilities is to capture a specific color at the job site that the client wants to incorporate into the overall decor of the project. Capturing color with fan decks is found to be inadequate. Generally, the interior designer will bring bulky fan decks to the job site and upon trying to match a color will not find an appropriate color representation but rather a close resemblance of the color in “brand x” fan deck close to numbers 102 and 103. Such color information cannot be easily conveyed to a paint store. Even though fan decks are state-of-the-art they are inadequate in everyday color matching. The average fan deck has approximately 1,200 colors whereas millions, if not billions of colors exist in the visible light spectrum. Furthermore, communicating color matches with words is difficult. Often, the conversation is ambiguous, recommending a shade or a hue modification from a standard “brand x” fan deck color.
Devices have been developed which allow one to capture the basic color composition of a surface. Such a device is described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,798,517 entitled Handheld, Portable Color Measuring Device with Display issued to Gregg Wagner et al. This device only measures the Red-Green-Blue levels of light reflected from the target surface that is scanned by the device. However, the display capability of the device is only used to show alphanumeric information such as the average RGB levels in relative numbers in the form of percentages or graphically in the form of three bars with lengths indicating the relative magnitude of each color component (Red, Green, and Blue). In another embodiment of this device the display indicates a color number referring the “closest match” to a known industry standard color.
Similar devices are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,674,530 and 6,583,880 both entitled “Portable Colorimeter” and both issued to Viktors Berstis. These devices also disclose a similar LCD display that provides graphical and or alphanumeric information about the component levels of the measured color.
In spite of the existence of such known industry standard colors designing with color is still not concise when returning from the jobsite to the office desktop. Different software programs and printers inevitably lead to inconsistencies due to color reproduction inaccuracies. Different methods of display and display devices represent the same color component mixture many times as very different hues by being unable to achieve the proper tint or shade by controlling the levels of white or black respectively. These inaccuracies are magnified by the inherent difficulty in representing a painted surface that exhibits color based on a subtractive color method, with a light emitting device such as a LCD or CRT screen that represents colors through an additive color method.
These color systems are explained on the www.worqx.com web site in the following linked pages: Color Theory Overview, Color Basics, Color and Systems.
A subtractive color mixing system refers to the process of painting, printing, dying or otherwise coloring an object by adding a mixture of pigments to for example, a white surface or object, which initially reflects all frequencies of light and thereby appearing white. Each paint or ink pigment added to the mixture increases the number of light frequencies that are absorbed by the surface or object thus subtracting from those frequencies that are reflected to determine the color that the object appears. The more pigments added to the mixture the more the color tends toward black.
Conversely an additive color mixing system refers to the process of controlling the frequencies of visible light actually transmitted or projected to the eye. The specific frequency of the projected light determines the color of the visible light observed. As more frequencies of visible light are added to the projection or display screen mixture the color of that visible light tends toward white light.
In order to obtain certain shades or tints of a specific color paint, ink, or dye it is common practice to add amounts of black pigment to obtain shades and white pigment to obtain tints. In representing color on projection screens the three components of white light, namely Red, Green, and Blue are typically used. However, the achievement of various shades or tints has not been accomplished in the previously cited prior art device displays.
The limitations discussed above indicate a significant need for a tool that allows a user to accurately capture and display a relatively infinite variety of visible colors and the ability to match those colors.